Éclair: Anata ni Hibiku Yuri Anthology
Éclair: A Girls' Love Anthology That Resonates in Your Heart

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Here's my take after reading the one-shot Shiawase wa Kizu no Katachi of Éclair: Anata ni Hibiku Yuri Anthology by Nio Nakatani.

After reading and catching up to the latest chapter of Yagakimi, I felt I needed to read more or something similar to it, and luckily I was able to read this one shot of Nio-san which also happens to be a part of a Yuri Anthology together with 16 other Yuri one-shots.

Shiawase wa Kizu no Katachi or Happiness in a shape of a scar is such a beautiful story of Torii a high school student that despises Kai a timid piano genius.

Since this is ... just a one-shot that you can read in just a few minutes I will not add much detail other than that above.

What I can say is that the art is at par with Yagakimi which is fresh and light and the story is more of a reminder that love in many cases hides through hate/annoyance.

I would give this one-shot a 9/10 <3

Well, to be honest I think that this manga is quite weak.

Just to put the manga into the context, all of the chapters are an individual story and all of them have been written by a different author.

There are some that are fine and others that are quite lame. But in the end the big problem of this manga, at least for me, is that all the stories are way too short. Even if there are some good ideas to make an actual story the lack of development totally drags back your reading experience.

So I would say that this manga is readable, but try to ... don't have high expectations.

The art in this anthology is wonderful...and that's about where the wonder stops. Eclair collects stories from various yuri manga creators, most of which fall under the Slice of Life genre. The age choices that too many of these authors decided on were questionable at best. I have no problems with age gaps—like a 35-year-old with a 25-year-old is totally fine. In fact, I wish that were the case for most of the stories in Eclair.

About half of the stories consisted of an age 25-30y/o woman pursuing a high schooler or younger which is wildly inappropriate because they're at different stages in their lives—to a ... normal adult, a teenager is an easy target and a child. It's creepy the way these characters were written as well. The younger characters are shown with an inability to form concrete assessments of what's needed in a healthy relationship due to their lack of experience and the adult characters take full advantage of that. Romanticizing this kind of behavior from adults is a gross misuse of the platform.

Don't get me wrong: I love power dynamics. I can see how certain power dynamics are attractive (ex: professor/student, queen/handmaiden—assuming all are age-appropriate) because ~forbidden love~ but it wasn't handled well in Eclair. Other stories are either cute/fluffy or they have consent issues, manipulation, bullying, etc. Out of all 15 stories in this anthology, only 3 were worth buying (I got the book for Nakatani). Would I buy it again knowing what I know now? Hard pass.